This week is the last of the speech therapy training sessions for Little Nutter (not that he attends.)

At “Group” I have been learning all sorts of theories and techniques to enable communication with him. And it has been extremely productive.

But yesterday, the “Facilitators” gave us some new homework:

Practise choosing toys and books that prompt communication.

We have saved a few weeks worth of Little Nutter’s disability allowance for just this sort of thing, and so, after carefully studying the textbooks and making notes on Little Nutter’s current interests and abilities, we went looking for toys that would involve careful construction and then turn-taking.

In Toys R Us we found a great marble-run that needs assembling into a new track for every game. Excellent.

But then I saw her, across a crowded shop, just casually catching my eye before being hidden by a large group of people. It was a few minutes before I could glance that way again, and there was another man in the way, trying his luck.

I had to ditch the family, and get some time alone. “You keep looking here, dear, and I’ll go and ask at Information,” I lied. It worked. Darling Wifey was lumbered with all three children, and I had five minutes.

With a small shiver of guilt I doubled back after the first ailse, and headed straight for the display, and there she was. A thirty six inch long, petrol powered remote control hovercraft.

I had an almost uncontrollable urge to jump up and down on the spot.

Darling Wifey found out almost straight away, of course. I think she heard me begging the demonstrator for a go. And she doesn’t think that it fits the criteria we drew up for a toy for Little Nutter.

But I think it does.

Darling Wifey: A comfy chair, a large bag of doritos & a selection of sour cream and salsa dips, a glass of chilled Touraine Sauvignon, and the latest Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter or Philip Pullman novel.

Little Madam: Anything that belongs to you. But a mobile ‘phone would be a good second choice. Please daddy, please. Daddy. Please daddy. Oh pleeeeeeeaaaaase!

Little Nutter: Italian garlic bread from the pizza delivery people. He likes to sit in the box whilst he eats it. He eats the middle bit first, and makes a track for his trains out of the crust. Well, how do you eat garlic bread?

Tiny Flirt: He’s got a wooden spoon, and it’s wonderful! You can hit things with a wooden spoon to see what noises they make. Little Madam cries, which makes Tiny Flirt laugh so hard he falls over. Little Nutter just ignores him. But best of all is the mummy and the daddy. It makes them cross, and that is really funny.

Yours Truly: Beer. (Men’s superiority is founded in our simplicity.)

The local education authority have made a decision about “what is best” for Little Nutter.

They have offered him a place at the local state nursery that has provision for children with special educational needs.

HURRAH! you might say… but no.

This nursery place is for five half days a week. He can only attend if someone could remove him from his current, excellent day care nursery, transport him to the state nursery for the proposed hours, and then return him to the day care nursery.

“No problem,” said the authority. “We can arrange a taxi.”

Yes, that’s right, a TAXI for a three year old autistic child. ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR MINDS????

We want him to stay where he is - we have every intention of paying for it! The paediatricians, speech therapists and child psychologists all agree that he is better off where he is. And removing him from the nursery that has been so good for him since he was four months old will be unnecessarily cruel, damage the progress he has been making, and utterly destroy any possible benefits specialist educational therapy can make.

And the authority say that they didn’t know that both parents worked, and were unable to transport him to and from places during the day. I consider that to be absolute and undeniable proof that they did not read the information submitted to them by the healthcare professionals and by Darling Wifey and myself.

They are going to reverse the decision. They will be given a chance to do so nicely, with everyone happy and reasonable and co-operative. They will understand this. What they will not do is mess my autistic child around just because it is easy.

It’s that time of year again. 14 year old children, who think that they know everything about sex, have to study sex and relationship education at school.

I enjoy this, because it is actually good fun freaking children out with comments like “In a monogamous relationship, there is no reason why a healthy couple cannot continue to have sex for years after their eightieth birthdays.” If ever an idea was designed to offend the sensibilities of teenagers, old people having sex is it.

Then we get the science of sex. Whilst studying the morality and spirituality of sex in the Religious Education classroom, the children learn all the scientific “ins and outs” of sex in the science classroom. But no matter how carefully you educate children, they always pick up stupid ideas from the gutter:

Q: Why does semen contain glucose?
Genuine answer by 14 year old girl: To make it taste nicer.

Welcome to the slowest laptop in the universe!

Those nice people at The Laptop Shop have done me proud. For half the price of one child in day-care for a week, they have delivered a replacement laptop, complete with Windows and a modem, and the service has been OUTSTANDING!

Three cheers for those clever fellows!

There is a drawback, though…

First, the laptop looks like it was built in 1977. I’ve been searching it for a “Sinclair” label, but so far it has eluded me…

Second, it only accomodates type I or type II PCMCIA cards (and just STOP thinking about internal modems right now! Forget it, and don’t ask questions!)

Third, there is a CD-ROM drive, but it only plays four speeds. I can only just recall x16 speed CD-ROMS. I didn’t know they did x4 speed!

And finally (trust me, you WILL be impressed!) there is the speed. You can actually put the kettle on, make some toast, answer a few clues in The Times crossword and brush your teeth in the time it takes to turn this machine on!

There is only one name that we can give to such a machine! “FLASH!”

And without hesitation, I have to say that “FLASH!” is the greatest computer in the universe! I ADORE it!

I mixed up a jug of Pimm’s cocktails yesterday, for all of our friends who came back to our house after Tiny Flirt’s baptism.

I used fresh lemonade, lemons, limes, oranges, strawberries, cucumber and fresh mint. There were mountains of ice to pour it over.

Delicious.

I knocked my glass over onto my laptop.

Fizz. Pop. Croooaak.

I’ve just had to buy a second hand laptop to replace it. Darling Wifey is not impressed.